“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien presents an in depth look into a soldiers’ life during the Vietnam war. O’Brien writes about the habits, heirlooms, and objects that soldiers would carry with them during the war to keep their minds off the actual fighting. The Vietnam War began in the mid 1950’s because of America’s anti-communism sentiment towards the Soviet Union. In fact, the Vietnam War could be called a metaphorical war because in that Vietnam was practically Soviet sponsored; so in reality, America was fighting the Soviets but not fighting actual Soviet soldiers. The war was one of America’s deadliest wars with an estimated 200,000 members of the American Armed forces were killed alone(Wikiedia). The survivors of the war probably had terrible cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. These survivors saw their friends die and in turned killed many other men because they were told to kill them by their commanding officer. If these men were obsessed with what they had done in the Vietnam War, then surely they would have gone insane. O’Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota and has a BA in Political Science. He was drafted in 1968 to the U.S. Army and served in the 46th regiment which is famous for the My Lai Massacre.

When soldiers come back from war they are said to have changed. In early wars, people would just say that the soldier was just hardened or that they were still alright. However, we now know that this is indeed not the case and that these soldiers have a mental illness called post-traumatic stress syndrome. In a review from the book” Shell Shock to PTSD: Military Psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War” by Robert J.T. Joy, it says that the soldiers would be treated for what it would call “shell shock” or “combat exhaustion” but would be recommended to return to battle at the front line, where basically all the fighting that put them in the psychiatric ward in the first place took place (Joy 241).  In a nutshell, these soldiers were treated very poorly and the psychiatrists ended up forcing them to get over it or die on the front line; that is the worst way to handle a situation like that. Therefore, soldiers carry around distractions with them, hoping that the object that they have, no matter how big or how small, will keep their min sharp, stay mentally focused, and keep them sane.

In “Trauma, Neurobiology, and Personality Dynamics: A Primer” by Len Sperry, Sperry talks of the origin of PTSD and the symptoms associated. Sperry says that PTSD originates in the hippocampus part of the brain. The hippocampus deals with the memory and stress responses of the brain (Sperry 163). Sperry also tested several Vietnam veterans with an MRI, and the subjects showed smaller hippocampal regions of the brain. According to Sperry, a smaller hippocampus means that the patients had prolonged exposure to stress during their time in war in Vietnam (Sperry 163). This study is not surprising, the Vietnam war lasted 20 years, however, escalation of troops deployed did not occur until the 1960’s under the presidency of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The war also spanned three presidents until Nixon finally pulled American forces out in 1975 giving the Communists all of Vietnam. 

Referring to “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the objects that they kept were for distraction. However, the title seems to not just mean the distractions that kept them from thinking of war but the actual gear that they carried for war, and the memories that they did not want to carry but were forced to due to their life-threatening experiences. For example, Kiowa witnessed his friend Ted Lavender get killed. Kiowa could even describe the way Lavender fell dead to the ground. The other soldiers stripped him of his ammo, rations, and water, covered him in his poncho, and left him for the chopper to pick him up; Kiowa has probably carried that image with him his whole life after the war. The distractions that the soldiers could prevent them from doing their job correctly though. For example, when Lieutenant Cross is inspecting a cave to make sure it is safe, he ends up being overtaken with memories of a girl whom he loves dearly back home, Martha. Cross thinks about her the entire time he is making sure his men are ok. By doing that, he ends up getting Lavender killed. Jimmy Cross could not get the fact out of his head that is love for Martha got one of his men killed. Jimmy Cross felt extremely guilty of Lavender’s death he ended up burning the letters from Martha along with his love for her. The fact that he got a man killed for a girl weighed on Cross’s conscious until the day he died, which probably gave him PTSD symptoms. 

War is a nasty part of life; it makes human beings do horrible acts to others and themselves. To kill another man is tough, and it is even tougher on your mind as you could possibly carry that memory with you for the rest of your life because of PTSD. The mental disorder mainly spurs from mental weakness and exposure to intense stress in life threatening situations. The mental disorder is vile and not only affects Vietnam veterans but veterans of all wars. From Lieutenant Cross getting a man killed because his mind was not focused on the battlefield to Kiowa witnessing another man’s brains being blown out by a Vietcong soldier, PTSD has affected too many soldiers in many ways and there should be more measures to try and prevent PTSD from happening. 
